Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Well between camping and swimming lessons starting, I have managed to get in a bit of sewing for the first week of the school holidays. I have finished the top of Matilda's bolster. This hasn't followed a pattern or a sketch like usual, I have just kind of sewn it as I went along. I'd drap it over the existing bolster to see if I was on the right track, yes, close enough and sew the next part. Lynne was great and emailed me some photos of her wonky letters. But my wonky letter sewing days are over with these seven letters!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Friday was the last day of term 3 here in Western Australia, yahhh, that means two weeks of school holidays stretched out in front of us! So we packed up the car and joined Mr and Mrs F once again on an adventure. We went to El Questro, again! At 421,000 square kilometres, - that’s five times the size of Tasmania, 1.7 times the size of the United Kingdom and 10 times the size of Switzerland (according to their website), I think we can safely assume that we will see something different this trip!

We camped this time, in our own tent, cooked our dinner and breakfast on our little gas burner. The kids thought it was fantastic! After we had set up camp on the Saturday, we drove out to Branco’s Lookout. Cracked open a bottle of champers and had some nibbles and toasted that we had survived term 3 of the school year!

The next day we were up early and day went to El Questro Gorge. Here is Daz and Mr F just checking out the depth of the first water crossing. Yep, looks good, lets go boys!

It was a shaded walk. Clear pools and ferns growing up one side, very pretty.

We set up the self timer on the camera and managed to get a shot in what they call the half way pool. The trail here stopped being a blue easy trail and went up to a hard red from this point. With the girls in tow we didn't go any further. To get around this rock you had to climb up the waterfall on the right or the rock on the left, bit tricky!

That afternoon we went on a boat cruise up Chamberlain Gorge. It has towering 300 metre escarpments and no crowds as you can only get to it by boat. On the drive down to the jetty though you do catch a glance of the posh Homestead accommodation.

We stayed at what is called the Station. They had created a little swimming pool in the Pentecost River which we all loved dipping in. Milly practiced her floating. Little fish would nibble your ankles though which for me took a bit to get used to.

There were donkeys and some horses near the camp ground. They woke us every morning with their loud eorrrrr! One morning while I was trying to drink my coffee in peace I sent the girls up with the camera to take some shots and Grace came back with this one of Milly. I don't know who was more impressed with themselves, Milly for touching the donkey or Grace for taking a great photo.

Then as we left this morning,we turned the corner to find these brogla's calmly drinking in the river. Thanks for another great time El Questro, see you soon!

Monday, September 20, 2010

I received this most delightful package in the mail today. It took my breath away. Look!! My very own chair dolls quilt from the incredibly talented Lucinda. She is known in the flickr quilting community for her chair dolls quilts, and look, I have my very own made just for me! She is amazing, she made one for each of the swap mamas for the DQS#9, a very generous gesture, thank you so much Lucinda, I love mine.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

We have been getting out on the weekends a bit lately before it gets too hot and humid. Today we went here and Grace discovered the biggest stick insect ever! And the other weekend we went here. I took the above photo on the way home out the front window of the car. It's my screen saver shot now.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Bolster! What a word! According to Wikipedia it is from the Germanic word bulstraz and is a long narrow pillow or cushion filled with cotton, down, or fibre. Well yes, that describes the calico made and stuffed long cushion that Mum made Milly hmmmm, three years ago for the side of her bed to go in that gap between mattress and wall. Three years and still waiting for a nice cover to go over it, until this morning! I figure with her quilt top in the mail to be quilted, I should get started. I woke inspired and got started. So we had this...

And then this.... And I am feeling some grass coming along as well and maybe, even maybe my first attempt into free pieced letters like Lynne for her name.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I had an epiphany earlier this week. I don't want to quilt this quilt. I don't want to kneel on the floor for a few hours and sandwich it. I don't want to wrestle with it under the machine and quilt it. Even though I have Mum's lovely wide necked machine. I finished this back a few weeks ago and I am all ready to start just lacking the drive. And then it hit me. Get someone else to quilt it Helen! Send it away!! Usually I love the quilting bit but for this one, its filling me with dread! So I am posting it off tomorrow to this lady here. Yahhh! It feels good to have come to that conclusion.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

I completed my spiderweb block for Amy today. I used this tutorial here which was pretty good. I've never done a spiderweb block before, I was chuffed with the end result and hope Amy is too. That's the first block for Around the Block Round 2 all done!

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

I have made some more trial blocks for Around the Block #2. Just seeing how much fabric to send out! I thought I would sew some little 2.5" ones. And then a big 10" one.

And then a big 12.5" one!

And this is how they look all together! I'm really happy with the colours and block selection. Grace likes it too, she is asking "When are your sewing friends on the computer going to make me the rest of my quilt?" I point to the pile of fabric on the ironing board and the envelopes and say "soon Gracie Lou, soon!"

Monday, September 06, 2010

I got the best mail today! A parcel from my partner for the flickr DQS#9. I'll admit I was a little suprised as usually I'm one of the last to receive, but this time I am amongst the first! I recognized the user ID on the parcel too from the group and of course with the logo on it, I knew exactly what it was!

It was from Cindy, who absolutely spoilt me!! Look at all the goodies I got! How did she know my blue erasable pen had nearly run out too?

Her quilting is just amazing. I was speechless, I would have been happy with just the quilt! The detail in her hand quilting is incredible and when you run your hand over the bird, the texture!

Little french knots? My hand applique knot knowledge isn't much so I'm not sure... the attention to detail though! It is just lovely!

And the label! What quilt is complete without an amazing label!

And this little birdie to match. I had to take this off Matilda who was playing with it, I distracted her with a parcel that Cindy has so kindly popped in for each of the girls.

They scored these little fairies! We discovered after I took this shot that their hands and feet have little magnets in them so the girls had great fun going around the house seeing what they would stick too!

And also these two little bags! The amount of work in these!! Bags are so tricky to make and she made two! The bigger one has zips and pockets and the DQS#9 logo on it! It's just amazing!!!!! Thank you so much Cindy for everything, I feel very lucky to be your partner. Now just to wait till mine arrives at it's new home, shouldn't be long now.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

This is such an easy block it doesn't really need a tutorial, but sometimes its fun to look at the visual before you do it. This is the block I have selected for Around the Block - Round 2. A Jewelled Square or a fancy way of saying a Square in a Square. For the purpose of this tutorial though, I'm not saying anything about measurements. In the photo below, the center square could be 8" or 2", that bit is up to you!

So step one, cut a square and two strips. Again the width of the strips is up to you. Could be a scant 1" or a more generous 4".

Sew together and then trim, making sure the center square is still square.

Then sew two more strips down the other two sides.

And that will give you your first square within a square. See, easy!

Then it is just a matter of doing it all again. Decide what thickness you want the second square to be, trim it down.....

Then sew on the strips.

Trim and sew on the second lot of strips and there you have your third square within a square. Now would be a good time to talk about measurements. I wanted these blocks to be 6.5" square. See this block laying over my 6.5" square ruler? My block is slightly too small! Bugger! Just half an inch more on that second square and I would have been okay. I have a habit of sewing first, then measuring! If I didn't have a project in mind for these blocks, then it would have been okay, I would have just made it 6" but I want this one to become one of four blocks to make a 12.5" block.

So I trimmed it down and added another square onto it. Above is the finished block, cut to 6.5".

These are some other blocks I was sewing at the same time. I trimmed them and then arranged in a pleasing manner....

And then sew together! And there you have it. A square in a square in a square!

Friday, September 03, 2010

Around the Block was so much fun over the last 12 months, some of us have signed up to do it all again! This time the quilt is going to be for Grace and she is rebelling against being dressed in pink for the first 5 years of her life and has helped me pick out this fabric for the quilt to be. I had to unroll one of my beloved jelly rolls! A mixture of solids and spots.

I'm getting inspiration for these blocks from here. It will a sort of jeweled square, square within square sort of block. They will be 12.5 inches finished but the layout can be different in each one, so the players in this round can have a bit of creative space.

This is a trial block I did this morning. I took a photo for each step of the way but I think I will blog that as a tutorial tomorrow as there is about 20 photos!

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Today I hung the quilt I kept for the flickr DQS#9 on the door to my sewing area. It's beautiful, I love it. I'm glad I kept this one.

It inspired me to start another one yesterday. But this one I am going to sew by hand. I always like to sew in front of the TV or on a long car trip but finding the right small project is tricky. So I selected another block from Aunt Millie's Garden to do. I'm sticking with soft pastels and pinks and purples again.

The yellow centres looked great I thought until I ironed them into place and realized ek! You can see the overlapping fabric underneath. I then found out how powerful that Steam-a-Seam stuff is, it was like supa glue, I had trouble pulling it off and it had only been ironed on 5 minutes beforehand!

So here is what it looks like now. I'll add the center wheel and the flower centers last. Wonder when that will be?!